Zaza Pachulia

Early in the day on Wednesday, Major League Baseball announced that All-Star Todd Frazier was traded from the Cincinnati Reds to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a seven-player trade. Wait, I thought this was a basketball blog! Well, one of those guys involved in the trade was Trayce Thompson. Not quite a Splash Brother, but the biological brother of the Golden State Warriors’ Klay Thompson and former NBA player, Mychel Thompson, who now plays in Italy.

As brothers, it’s pretty common to be competitive with each other. We may not be on as big of a stage as the Thompson brothers, but my older brother and I make almost everything a competition between each other, whether it’s games of one-on-one, 10-mile races, or Settlers of Catan.

While Trayce was gaining popularity as a new member of the Dodgers in California, Klay went off for 27 points in the 3rd on his way to a game high 43 points (15-22 FG, 8-13 3PT). It must be a happy time for the Thompson family!

Coming off their first loss of the season, the Warriors blew out the Suns by 25, leading by 40 after the 3rd quarter.

With the game in hand, Thompson, Draymond Green, and Stephen Curry weren’t even needed in the 4th quarter. That was enough minutes for Green to go for a triple double (16/11/10/5) and Curry to drop 25 points and 7 assists. So much for feeling sad about their first loss.

Mötley Crüe once sang, “Friday night and I need a fight, my motorcycle and a switch blade knife. Hand full of grease and my head feels right, but what I need to make me tight are those girls, girls, girls.”

Me, I just need me some classic NBA Jam.

I was actually kind of shocked at the piss-poor teams they had when I settled in for the first of three full games that would be played at the local barcade. Obviously, no Jordan, because Midway hadn’t secured the license to use his name, so you had Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen. Utah’s Stockton-Malone and Houston’s Dream-Kenny Smith were the tops, followed by maybe Charles Barkley and Dan Majerle.

Of course, I somehow got stuck with Lohaus as my dude. I ended up pouring in 54 points on 23-38 shooting (mostly limp reverse dunks). He got on fire twice, helping me to a 66-55 victory.

Later, I used the Washington Bullets’ duo of Tom Gugliotta and Harvey Grant, coincidentally Deadspin’s second-worst all-time, against the Clyde Drexler-Terry Porter Portland tandem, and I ended up losing by a hair, 48-46. Even though Gugs scored all 46 of my points, I just couldn’t get him past Drexler, nor could he guard either of those dudes.

I was a bit surprised that Barnes took the shot considering there were still a few ticks on the clock when he chucked it up. Either way, it was a nice finish to a nice game from Barnes (8 points, 11 rebounds, and 3 assists in 30 minutes). The journeyman forward has always been a borderline fantasy player for his ability to do a little bit of everything.

Barnes had a nice string of games at the end of November, but now that Zach Randolph is back (21 points and 16 rebounds), Barnes has seen his minutes decrease. He should probably be dropped in 10 and 12 team leagues, but should continue to be monitored, should he see around 30 minutes a night.

Shortly before the tip of the Grizzlies’ game in New Orleans on Tuesday night, Memphis beat writer Ronald Tillery reported that coach Dave Joerger “desperately wants to reduce Marc Gasol‘s minutes.” Coming into the game, MG had averaged in excess of 38 MPG over his last five contests – a number that is, by all accounts, quite high for a true big man in today’s National Basketball Association. Fantasy owners of Gasol were probably watching Tuesday’s game to see how Joerger would adjust his rotations to get the prized center some more rest. What did they witness? (I’m so glad you asked…)

Marc Gasol played 42 minutes of other-worldly basketball, posting 38/13/6/0/4. If that wasn’t enough, he shot an even 50% from the field on 22 attempts and was flawless from the FT line on 16 (!!!) tries. Yep, sixteen for sixteen. He was the only Grizzlies starter with a positive rating (+8) on the night and his team won the game, which goes to show you just how instrumental Gasol was in this one.

(As an aside – perhaps Tillery heard coach Joerger wrong and he said he desperately wanted to reduce everyone but Gasol’s minutes? No other Memphis starter played more than 31. Go figure.)

This is your ultimate sell-high moment on the younger of the two Gasols. If you can score a top-25 asset in return, I think you pretty much have to do it. In trade negotiations you can point to the high minutes, the nice boards & blocks numbers, and the sweet out-of-position dimes. That is, unless you are a believer that Marc can withstand this kind of workload over the course of an 82-game season. I’m never one to predict injuries, but wear & tear is a very real thing, and when you’re dealing with a 7’1″, 265lb monster of a man on the wrong side of 30, miles add up quickly.

I’d be interested to know where Gasol’s owners stand after this one. Are they looking to sell? Or are they going to ride him all the way to the edge of the cliff? (Chime in below via the comments section if you have a buy/sell/hold take.)

Let’s take a look at what else shook down on Tuesday night with 12 teams in action…

After a tough loss in Detroit, it’s safe to say things have yet to take flight for this year’s Houston Rockets. While many came into the season thinking Houston’s out-of-this-world lineup had the potential to challenge the incumbent Golden State Warriors for the title as best team in the West, those dreams came crashing back to earth weeks ago (and Kevin McHale is still searching through the wreckage for the cause of the incident). Last night’s struggles are just another indication of this season’s overall trend: the Houston Rockets are looking more like Team Rocket when they step on the court.

Even a near triple double from James Harden (29 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists) wasn’t enough for Houston to surmount a surprising Pistons squad. With Harden passing 40 minutes for the fourth straight game, it’s looking like the Rockets are going to be riding their thoroughbred until the saddle cracks. In fairness, a monster game from Harden is probably the best chance Houston has to win every night, but for fantasy owners, the team’s struggle bodes well for the Beard’s outlook. Harden is going to score in abundance while racking up rebounds, assists, 3s, and steals as Houston fights to stay in the playoff hunt early. I think these past five games are particularly telling for the current state of the team as well as Harden’s prospects for the next few weeks as they try to right the ship (or the rocket).

Welcome back from Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, with leftovers still to spare to get you through a full work-week back. I even bought a few extra boxes of stuffing since that ran out fast on T-giv day! Got two or three meals left to go… God I love Thanksgiving!

And while I added several inches to my waistline, Draymond Green has been stuffing his stats even more! Back-to-back tripdubs over the weekend for #OccupyDraymondGreen, going 14/10/10/1/2 then 13/11/12/1/4 on Friday and Saturday. The multi-cat phenom hit two treys as well on Friday – averaging a career-best 1.6 3PTM a game on the season – while his FG% has continued to climb all four seasons as a pro, up to 48.2% this year. It’s almost like the Warriors have good players or something! The only knock is his TO are up, but even in standard 9-cat he’s bringing back top-15 value on BBMonster and top-10 on Yahoo. I remain a little incredulous that a lot of people thought 2014-15 was a fluke (I guess?), and I had to defend a “high” rank a few times in the comments. So after this Thanksgiving weekend, I am thankful Dray is helping our Yahoo F&F team be decent this year and that rank is working out… Because trust me, a lot has gone wrong. Friggin’ Rubio… Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy hoops, plus The 7 Ahead for week 6:

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. This week’s article will be short because I’m traveling back home. As far as last week goes, it was just ok and I need to start taking some of my own advice. Anyway let’s get on with this 7 game slate:

Point Guards

Damian Lillard (9,100) has a usage rate of 31.5% and that is good for 6th overall in the league. Also, the Lakers give up the 2nd most fantasy points to PG’s. Lillard put a 65 spot on them last Sunday.

Ish Smith (6,600) has been over 40 fantasy points 3 out of his last 4 games with Jrue Holliday on the court. The matchup vs Utah isn’t the greatest, but Holiday is sitting out.

Wow, how good is Russell Westbrook? Two nights after dropping 40 points and 14 assists against the Grizzlies, Westbrook scored 43 points, 8 assists, and 9 rebounds on Wednesday. The Thunder controlled the game, but never really put the game out of reach for the injury-riddled Pelicans. Whenever the Thunder needed a basket, Westbrook had no problem getting to the hoop or finding the open man. My only knock on Westbrook’s game is the turnovers, but when you’re posting near triple doubles every night, you’re allowed to turn the ball over as much as he does.

Now his stats are inflated a little because Kevin Durant has been sitting with a hamstring injury, but Westbrook is still a top 10 talent even with Durant in the lineup. Should Durant leave the Thunder next season (to go to, say, the Wizards!!!), Westbrook would enter my top three, along with Steph Curry and Anthony Davis.

But it is interesting that we’ve had back-to-back weekends of patience paying off. It’s like having to hold it in and thinking of baseball to make it last! Although when I think of baseball I think of Grey, so it’s not making anything last! The injuries have been ridiculously frustrating the past two years, but this last one was just a bad cut that Terrence Jones accidentally squeezed lemon juice in when he was making shrimp scampi. At least it wasn’t a leg or body part injury, so I remained firm in my Tjones love. A lot of commenters were asking about selling Tjones away for virtually nothing, and there was even some drop Tjones sentiment. After a pretty lowly return last Wednesday, Jones showed everyone how good he is when his run is normalized, putting up 23 Pts on Friday and Saturday, with 23/7/0/0/4 and 23/6/1/1/3 lines hitting well over 50% from the field with a combined 4 treys. I can’t think of baseball fast enough when seeing those numbers! As I quickly change my pants, it’s probably too late to swing some buy low offers and hopefully you own Tjones in several leagues to ride the wave. If anyone wants to pay top-30 or 40 value (doubtful), Jones does have the inherent risk of more injuries, so I might sell him off at that price. But I’m not looking at this weekend as a fluky, sell-high couple of games. Pateince is a Tjones! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy hoops action, and The 7 Ahead for week 4:

Ok, so I’ll admit that I’m really stretching this, just so I can write the name Metta World Peace. However! The artist formerly known as Ron Artest is averaging over a 3, steal and a block per game so far. That’s fantasy gold if you ask me! On top of that, he’s started when KobeBryant misses time, and Kobe is likely to miss a lot of time… From a basketball standpoint, his shot is looking good, and he actually dropped 4 trey-balls in his last start. Basically, I’m not telling you to run out and grab World Peace, but I’m not telling you not to either… Make sense? Good, didn’t think so!

For this weeks article, I’m not going to separate by category, since not a huge amount has changed from the first two weeks. If you want to see the first couple weeks of recommended pickups, check the links: Here and Here! Just follow those as the main recommendations based on category, and this will simply be a few guys that have stood out this week! (I’ll get back to the category format next week, there just isn’t enough new in every category to do that this week.)